Is lifting COVID-19 restrictions in New Brunswick the right move? 2 experts disagree

As New Brunswick moves closer to lifting its COVID-19 restrictions on Monday, opinions on whether it's the right move remain far apart, even among some experts.

Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Toronto, who has followed the province's situation, calls the decision premature. He suggests it's politically motivated and warns "we're going to pay a heavy price."

He believes cases will surge, including among children and health-care workers, and hospitalizations and deaths will rise. He also worries about the possible ravaging effects of COVID on New Brunswickers' bodies and relationships.

"I don't think this is good timing at all," Furness said.

"I think we're following a terrible example, which is to simply politically declare COVID is over. And I don't think anyone's consulted the virus on this."

In other jurisdictions where restrictions have been lifted, subvariants of Omicron have "come roaring back," he said. "And I think that's what we're going to be looking at."

Raywat Deonandan, an epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, disagrees.

"Does it make sense to remove restrictions in New Brunswick? I think it probably does," he said.

New Brunswick's daily new PCR-confirmed case count has been around 400, compared to more than twice that a couple of months ago, noted Deonandan — although the province now reserves PCR tests for certain priority groups.

Death rates have also dropped "significantly," he said. (January marked the pandemic's deadliest month in New Brunswick, with 78 COVID-related deaths, a rate of 9.8 deaths per 100,000. As of March 10, the rate of deaths in the previous seven days stood at one.)

In addition, hospital capacity is "good," and the vaccination rates are "pretty high," with 87.3 per cent of eligible New Brunswickers double-dosed and 50.6 per cent boosted, as of Friday.

"You're not really at the same stress levels as other provinces," said Deonandan.

"However, [lifting restrictions] has to be done in the context of the pandemic as a whole because it's raging on in the rest of the country and the rest of the world."

New Brunswick can't "remain an island unaffected" unless it takes "extraordinary steps to monitor incoming infections."